But You Gained Love
by shirpless
Summary: Frisk heard their own subconscious voice taking initiative. It seemed that they weren't alone, so why did their journey feel a little lonely? [A first shot at an Undertale one-shot] [Special thanks to Catsrawesome & MrMrMANGOMILK for informing the upload error!]


_The shadows of the Ruins loom above, filling you with determination._  
 _HP fully restored._

A feeling of recovery washed through my being.  
I looked at my hands & experimentally clumped my fingers into fists several times. I really got all of my strengths back.

A question lingered at the back of my mind, but I couldn't put it into words at that time.  
So I decided to shrug it off and went on to follow the caretaker of the Ruins, while thinking on the sudden temptation to call her 'goat mom'.

#######################

"..."

I awkwardly pretended to listen to the Dummy's response as I stared at its eyes made of sewn buttons.

 _It doesn't seem much for conversation._  
 _Toriel seems happy with you._

My subconscious seemed to have taken initiative on commenting again.

I turned to look at Toriel who had been standing at the next entryway.  
She did look happy with my attempt on the assigned practice.  
Well, that was easily an expected result.

"Ah, very good! You are very good," Toriel praised straightforwardly, before she abruptly left the room.

#######################

 _Froggit attacks you!_

I encountered a white frog.  
But more importantly...

 _"How did I come up with the name 'Froggit'?_  
 _Well, it's a frog... IT IS a frog.  
A Frogg-it._  
 _I guess I'm subconsciously making names for fun, just like I did with 'goat mom'."_

Once more, I shrugged it off to quickly deal with the frog.

"H-hi, there! That's a cool mark you have on your chest!"

…

 _Froggit didn't understand what you said, but was flattered anyway._

 _"Of course it wouldn't understand what I said... But it really is blushing from my compliment. Wow."_

Toriel noticed our encounter and shooed the frog away. Froggit looked intimidated and slid away in fear. Though a bit sympathetic towards the frog, I smiled gratefully at Toriel, who smiled back as we continued our way.

She really seemed to mean well with her intentions.  
Meanwhile, though, I felt a more bizarre name coming out of a void in my mind.

'Chara'…

Who is that?

#######################

"Greetings, my child."  
A felt a small smile creeping up my lips upon hearing myself being claimed as her child again.

"Do not worry, I did not leave you. I was merely behind this pillar the whole time. Thank you for trusting me."  
 _"You're welcome!",_ I thought, while finally giving the adorable goat mom a big smile.

She continued to explain that she was testing my independence, because she had to do some errands after this.  
How caring of her.  
"I have an idea. I will give you a cellphone! If you have a need for anything, just call. Be good, alright?", she advised as she gave me a rugged-looking simple cellphone before leaving the room.

I inspected the cellphone, quickly finding out that it only had calling as its feature. But that's fine.  
In the mean time, I decided to obey her words & stayed put at that area, sitting against the pillar she used to hide.

But that got boring, fast.  
After only 5 minutes, I decided to call her.

Rrriiing rrriiiiing…

"This is Toriel."

"…Hello. … I… just… wanted to say hello."

"You just wanted to say hello…? Well then, 'hello'! I hope that suffices. Hee hee."

Click.

I smiled at her innocent response.  
Though in the end, I left the boring place anyway and went through the puzzles alone.

#######################

"Right, right, I understand. Thank you for being patient, by the way."

Click.

 _"Toriel just called to ask if I'd like Cinnamon or Butterscotch. How suspicious; I wonder what our lovely goat mom is up to."_

 _ **Lovely… Goat… Mom…**_

A distinctly foreign voice echoed my thought.  
Startled, and a little embarrassed at my internal comments being overheard by someone else, I turned & searched for its source.  
But no one was around.

Then the name came back into my mind: 'Chara'.  
Who is that? What does it have to do with anything?

Unless…

I shut my eyes tighter than it probably already are, and spiritually searched around for clues.  
The name hanged at my tongue, itching to be called. So then, I called out the name.

"…Chara…?"

…

 _ **Greetings…**_

I jumped right out of my skin hearing the reply.  
" _W-who are you? WHERE are you? Why are you here- or- there- wherever you are?"_

…

Only silence answered me.

#######################

I've came to realize that any involuntary subconscious thoughts are not actually mine, even though they all sounded like my own little voice at the back of my mind.  
In other words, these thoughts would be Chara's.  
...Whoever they are.  
So then I started responding to their comments.

 _It's a snow poff._

"A snow poff… That sounds cute," I smiled to myself, repeating the term in my mind.  
A 'snow poff'.  
I moved on to inspect another snow poff.

 _And this…_  
 _Is a snow poff._

I briefly wondered to myself if I've just heard them saying that in a playful tone.

 _This, however._  
 _Is a snow poff._

Yes, yes I have.  
I smiled even wider as I playfully approached & poked another snow poff with my tree stick.

 _Surprisingly..._  
 _It's a snow poff._

And then another.

 _Snow poff…_

And another.

 _Is it really a snow poff?_

I don't know. Is it, Chara?

 _Behold!_  
 _A snow poff._

I made a mock shocked expression before deflating into a mock sad expression.  
But then I grinned in gleefulness and approached the second last snow poff.

 _Eh?_  
 _There's 30G inside this… What is this?_

I wowed at our discovery, taking all the gold coins into my pocket.  
"Glad we checked all the snow poffs then! Right, Chara?"

…

"Chara…?"

…

But no answer came.

I moved on to the last snow poff with a bittersweet smile.

#######################

I never got the chance to hear their own voice anymore other than those few times in the Ruins; let alone making even a single conversation with them. All I could have were one-sided fun.

From time to time, I would hear what seemed like a more developed sentience, a chance to interact.  
Sadly, no matter how much I tried to pursue their presence, no matter how much I called for them, I couldn't reach them.

But the journey must go on.

#######################

"no matter the struggles or hardships you faced…  
you strive to do the right thing.  
you refused to hurt anyone.  
even when you ran away, you did it with a smile."

"you never gained LOVE.  
but you gained love."

#######################

 _Strangely, as your friends remembered you…_  
 _Something else began resonating within the SOUL, stronger and stronger._

 _It seems that there's still… one last person… that needs to be saved._

 ** _But who…?_**

 ** _…_**

 _Suddenly, you realize._  
 _You reach out and call their name._

#######################  
=========END==========  
#######################

…

Aaaah welp, there ya go, my first finished Undertale fanfic.  
It was made with the theme "Love" involving Chara & Frisk. It was supposed to be a drabble, but for the love of god of hyperdeath, I couldn't control my plots and my words. Yet. (lol)  
But it's fun concept to write stories with limited word counts as practice for limiting my wordful stories & complicated plots.

So, this story resulted from the thought of how maybe in the Pacifist route, it mirrors the Genocide route where every time Frisk's love 'increases' from pacifying monsters, Chara gets a little bit more active, but still very passive & under complete control of the nature of their being. Or well maybe, it doesn't matter how much love from friends that Frisk gained, Chara would still only respond whenever something significant enough happens.  
And of course, instead of all the other monsters not coming to Frisk because they're scared of getting killed, it would be Chara who wouldn't come to them.

Chara seems to be a soulless ghost(?) who got a little sentient & involved thanks to Frisk's determination, shares Frisk's thought & feelings (and maybe can share their own back too), but never really awake because that can only happen if Frisk's EXP & LOVE increases. The most that could happen would be when a situation affects Chara's main memories & emotions very much that they sometimes respond to it in their own accord.

Or at least that's how I think it could be...

And yes, I know very well that it's debatable whether that last 'someone else' that Frisk saved was Asriel, Chara, or maybe just the memories of Asriel & Chara inside Asriel (compared to saving Chara themself). This was just from a thought for the case if it was Chara or at least the memories about Chara that was saved.

Though it'd be nice if Chara really was saved.  
Sobs.

Anyway, do drop a comment or review, or even just some fangirling/fanboying/fankidding(?) or fanraging like "noooo this is bs, Frisk was saving Asriel at that scene!1!11"!

Critics are always welcome. =)  
Thanks for stopping by & hope you enjoyed it!

[EDIT: Thanks to Catsrawesome & MrMrMANGOMILK(sorry pal I've just checked my email; didn't know there were 2 reviews before deleting it ;^^) for informing the upload error! That was weird...]


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